


Blood Still Stains

by impossiblewolfgirl



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Miscarriage, pregnant Rose, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-14 04:54:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4551309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblewolfgirl/pseuds/impossiblewolfgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Tyler had never thought the day would come when she would lie to the Doctor.<br/>She just couldn't tell him that she was pregnant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 Rose Tyler had never thought the day would come when she would lie to the Doctor.

Not a big lie.

Not a life-changing one.

But as she stared at his forlornly excited face, eyes wrinkling around the corners as he tried to be happy for her, she couldn’t put him in any more pain. He already had to leave her behind—a baby would have been the final nail in a coffin that should not have ever been sealed.

So instead of telling him that the baby was hers, she pushed it off on Jackie. Who was just a little bit too old, a little bit too disinterested in going through the trials and tribulations of having another child— _“What, and have another bundle of trouble running around? Mind you, I loved you to bits Rose, but you’re still a right handful. Nah, me ‘n Pete are gonna enjoy our time together. Alone.”_ Jackie had said at one point on the subject.

“No, it’s mum. She’s three months gone. More Tylers on the way.”

They hadn’t been there for three months yet, but Rose counted on the fact that the Doctor wouldn’t realize that. He was too busy flying through time to keep proper track of it.

He never even told her that he loved her.

That hit the hardest—that she was carrying his child and he didn’t know because he’s still the same slightly oblivious Doctor she met in the shop, the one who couldn’t find a transmitter that towered above London. And now he can’t get the right words out when it matters most.

It wasn’t his fault and she doesn’t love him any less for it, but it hurt.


	2. Chapter 2

“Rose, you coming? You’re gonna be late for work!” Jackie rapped sharply on the bathroom door.

Rose was engrossed in the thin trickle of red that had worked its way down her naked thigh, so much so that she was still wrapped in a towel from her shower instead of dressed, and her hair was still dripping wet. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes had passed and she was still trying to make sense of the crimson. It looked innocent enough sitting on her bare skin, except for the fact that it was blood. And she was definitely _not_ supposed to be doing any sort of menstruating at the moment. Not fourteen weeks into a pregnancy.

“Rose?” Jackie’s voice grew sharper as she knocked again. Never mind that Rose was an adult who could figure out for herself when she was going to be late, her mum was still in full protective mother hen mode.

“Mum?” Rose asked, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. “I think something’s wrong.” She’d had the creeping feeling for about a week now, or maybe for longer than that. Her mum had dismissed it as nerves, saying she’d felt the same exact way. Sometimes motherly premonitions overcame common sense, it seemed.

The door handle jiggled as Jacky tried to barge in. “What is it, love?” The snappishness had been stripped from her voice, leaving only the bare bones of concern.

Rose searched for words that had floated just out of reach in her head.  She watched a second bead of blood run down her leg below the towel wrapped around her body, and then wiped at it.

_There, all gone. All better._

“I’m bleeding.” Rose finally replied. She could feel something twist in her stomach as well. It was only a faint cramp, but at the last second it dragged nails down the insides of her stomach and her face contorted. She’d been having lower back pain for the past week or so, but figured it was just one of those strange malfunctions that happened when you were pregnant.

“Bleeding?” Jackie went back to jiggling the door knob, which Rose realized she should probably unlock. “Rose, open the door.”

She wasn’t even dressed—it was a disjointed realization that didn’t much matter, but Rose dropped the towel quickly and grabbed for the clothes on the counter. She pulled the t-shirt over her head and fumbled in a drawer for a pad.

“Rose!”

“Just a moment!” Rose snapped back, pulling her pants up and then twisting the lock on the door. It came flying inwards and Jackie came pushing into the steam-laden air eddying upwards towards the whirring fan.

“How much blood? Was it a lot? Sheryl, when she was pregnant she had a scare and they took her to the Doctor’s and he just put her on bed rest for a couple days. Prob’ly all it is, you running around at Torchwood all the time. Not that I blame you, got to keep distracted but—“

“ _Mum.”_ Rose closed her eyes for a second as she pushed the babbling into the background. “Will you take me to the hospital?” Her stomach was twisting with more vigor now. Maybe it was just nerves. Maybe it wasn’t.

Jackie snapped out of her hysterical chattering and regrounded. Her mouth bowed upwards into a smile that was not at all joyful, but meant to be comforting. Rose didn’t feel particularly comforted. Her lungs felt too large for her chest, and her ribs wouldn’t allow them to expand fully to get enough air. Suddenly _hospital_ was the only thought in her head—a blaring alarm and cry for help.

 

The car still smelled like the factory it had come from, leather and plastic fighting to be the domineering scent. Rose had cranked the window all the way down, and Jackie was doing her best to bite her tongue about how much wind was running through it. Up front, the Tyler’s personal driver was cutting through traffic with ease. It was weird having a personal driver, but for once the novelty was lost on Rose. She was too busy staring out the window as the wind whipped her hair up against her face. She could feel the blood pooling and growing sticky.

She had a ghostlike sensation of her mother’s cool hand wrapped around hers, squeezing very tightly, but it and Jackie’s talking was background noise. Her thoughts had picked up a megaphone and were screaming directly in her ear, demanding full attention.

_What if this is more than just a scare? What if you lose it?_

_What if your last tie to him gets cut?_

The car accelerated through a freshly green light, and Rose tried her best to push those rotten thoughts away.


	3. Chapter 3

Something had been itching at the back of his mind ever since the adventure with Donna Noble had dissipated. The Doctor was underneath the console trying to get at the flight stabilizers, face smeared with dust and a bit of grease when the realization of what that itch was hit him. He forgot where he was and tried to sit up as he uttered an exclamation, and slammed his head on a siding panel.

He was out from under the console in seconds, face darkening as the realization kept rolling.

“No!” His mouth had dropped open in shock and the rest of his face followed suit.

He stared at the blue central column for a moment and tried to focus himself. Checked and double checked his thought process.

“You scanned her, didn’t you? Must have at some point. Protocols and all.”

The TARDIS hummed as the Doctor darted around to the screen and hit several buttons to access the archived medical records. He had the TARDIS set to run them occasionally, and he could only hope that she’d done one recently. It was just a precaution to set off the alarms, should him or one of his companions trek back inside with some alien virus. In fact, it should have notified him if he were right…

“Thick!” He yelled at himself as the report came up. Rose Tyler. 20 years old. Good health, nothing abnormal. Just pregnant. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He was too swept up in his discovery to process any emotions trying to creep up to bother him.

His ship took on an apologetic sound and her lights dimmed slightly.

There’d been a slight hesitation on the beach. He’d taken it for grief over the situation in general, not a lie. He’d been full of pauses himself. That final one had cost him the words he’d finally worked up the courage to say. Part of him regretted that. The other half thought it served him right.

The next course of thought was rationalization. It didn’t matter whether she was pregnant or not, Rose Tyler was still Rose Tyler. His days of fatherhood were long past, and she was probably settled into her new world fully. She’d find someone new that didn’t put her in constant danger—a traveling Timelord’s life was not the sort of life to throw a child into. Him going back was useless.

Except that he knew Rose, and she wouldn’t move on. Not for ages, at least. If you gave anyone enough time, they’d give up eventually. It was a brilliant survival mechanism, yet another facet of the wonderful human species. But Rose was determined, and she felt things more deeply than others. Those feelings drove her.

His second realization hit like a load of bricks and crushed the reserves he’d been trying to throw up.

Traveling between universes wasn’t good for the walls between. It wasn’t great for the life forms that did it either, but so long as they were strong and encapsulated in some vehicle or another, no real issues occurred.

Newly formed and growing life forms were a different matter, though.

He grimaced at his TARDIS and pulled his sonic screwdriver out.

“You’re not going to thank me much for this.” He warned, scanning the screen in front of him as he searched for new information. And perhaps some blueprints. The manual was gone, disappeared into the burning sun in a burst of rapidly shriveling pages and ash. It hadn’t been useful on the subject of travel across universes.

He’d have to hope that his imagination combined with the TARDIS’s data banks would be enough.

He’d also have to hope that he was in time.

 

 

 

Before she had let go of that lever and slipped she hadn’t known about the baby(although didn’t pregnant women get the dropsies, couldn’t _that_ have been part of the reason why her fingers hadn’t been able to find their grip on the damned thing?).

The first pregnancy test she had done in top secret had ignited a light in her stomach. An awareness that she was carrying something precious. By the second positive test, that had evolved into a lifeline-type connection which had anchored her to a man a universe away. Maybe the Doctor was distant, but she had a part of him with her. A proof that he really had loved her, even if he couldn’t ever spit it out.

That lifeline had just been severed.

Rose watched the lips of Doctor Lowell as she spoke, but everything the doctor said was lost on her. Hopefully Jackie could relay everything to her later, not that she really wanted to know.

She wanted that feeling of having something precious within her back.

All there was now was a dull and uncomprehending emptiness. And curled in a messy tangle in the back of her head where she had shoved it to maintain her own sanity, there was a crippling call for the Doctor—her Doctor—to come and help her. If he had been there, he would have known some way to help. They had saved the day together before, this would have been no exception.

“How come this didn’t get picked up earlier? That there was something wrong?” Rose finally mumbled, breaking into the steady stream of scientific words pouring out of the doctor’s mouth. The brunette paused and nodded at her question.

“Yes, well, you are—were still early along in the pregnancy. This kind of thing does happen, especially in the first trimester. It can be a tough time for a lot of women.”

There was a cup of pens set to the left of the doctor’s folded hands, though it only had a total of three writing utensils in it. They looked awkward sitting in it alone.

“But I came in for all the appointments. Did the ultrasounds, he was doing fine then. You said he was healthy.” She flung the words like swords at Lowell, hoping they would pierce the crisp white lab coat and she wouldn’t sit there looking so calm and unruffled, with the rehearsed crease sitting in between her eyebrows and the apologies for Rose’s loss blanketing her lips.

“And the baby was, at that point. Sometimes these things just happen.”

There was no real explanation there. “I don’t accept that!” Her voice rose and Jackie put a warning hand on her shoulder.

“You need to rest for now, Rose. You’ve lost a good deal of blood. I’d like you to stay the night for monitoring purposes, but then I recommend you go home. Spend some time with family. I can recommend a grief counselor for you as well, and I recommend you go. This isn’t an easy loss.” Doctor Lowell smiled thinly and nodded a goodbye to Jackie. She left the room and closed the door behind her, leaving Rose with more demanding questions, all of them covering the same ground.

_Why did no one know? Why did it happen?_

The Doctor would have figured it out.

“I’m so sorry, Rose.”

She wanted to tell her mum to get out and leave her alone for once. At the same time, she wanted to be wrapped in her arms, and to finally cry. The tears had not come yet, though several hung on the inner edges of her lower eyelids, flirting with falling down. Rose knew there were chest-wracking sobs just waiting to come out, though. As soon as the fragile protective shell wrapped around her crumbled, they would be set loose.

The small hospital bed crackled as Jackie sat down on the edge and put an arm around Rose’s shoulders. She pulled her head onto her shoulder, and Rose remained as she was positioned, motionless.

No tears yet. He wouldn’t have wanted her to cry. She didn’t want to cry, either. Maybe Doctor Lowell was wrong somehow, and it had just been a scare.

Deep down, she knew, though. The baby was gone. The Doctor was gone. Everything else was gone, too.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick chapter I typed up since it's been a while since I updated. More angst soon to come, and I hope you're all enjoying it--also thanks to everyone leaving feedback!

The walls that kept universes cleanly separated could crack. It was a slow process that was spurred on by the shifting of the planets and stars and black holes within each universe, as they expanded and pressed on them. There was the effect of water on rock—casual wear. Then all it took was a couple very large collisions, and they were spider webbing. Freshly repaired walls, however, were very rigid and had experienced none of that thinning.

The Doctor had tried his best, and his sneakiest, and his scientific-est to repenetrate the walls which he had aided to come back together not so long ago.

The walls were not interested in cracking. The universes had sealed themselves and were happy to be at all-time high levels of homeostasis—few foreign bodies existing within them, and no new ones pouring through.

Finally, the TARDIS relinquished her final idea on the subject, and the Doctor was off, inspecting her dimensional stabilizers and guards.

Black holes. Most people thought they were the implosion and end of all things, but that had not always been the case. Back on Gallifrey, when the Timelords had still been scattered across the galaxy with their love for travel, those black holes had all been access points to different universes.

Most of them had closed after the Time War. They were like any path—once worn down, and easily accessible. Then the weeds and trees grew up, and suddenly you could no longer tell there had ever been a path, let alone get through.

The TARDIS wheezed queasily. The Doctor looked up, dark brown eyes alight with anticipation. He’d always enjoyed a challenge.

“Oh, yes you can. C’mon, what’s the worst that can happen, huh?” His tongue was pressed against his upper lip, hair standing up even more wildly than usual.

Being crushed by the pressure of the hole, should the TARDIS’s stabilizers malfunction. That was one little complication.

Ending up in another universe, which did not hold a pregnant Rose Tyler. Which was better than being crushed.

“I’ll set up a scan—closest one to where the rift was sealed. We’ll try her.” The Doctor leaned over the console and pressed buttons with unusually careful concentration.

 

 

“Rose? You comin’ out anytime soon?”

She was so empty.

The hospital gown had stuck to her skin like wet paper towel and sent chills through her as the sweat evaporated. The sweats she was wearing now did no better job of warming her up, though. The pillows and blankets piled up were useless as well, and the television spitting out a news report was a gnat at the corner of her attention.

Rose pulled the covers up over her head.

She’d deal with Jackie later. When she got up to go to the bathroom no doubt. Then her mother(she’d been about to be a mother as well until…) would intercept her and smother her with questions that would hit her and weigh her down even more.

She wasn’t sad. She had been sad that first night. The sobs hadn’t stopped, and she was almost afraid they would tear her in half. When they didn’t, however, she found herself disappointed they hadn’t. Now she was numb. It was reminiscent of when the Doctor had first left her, back when even the life that she thought of as a little light inside her could console her. This time it was worse.

Somewhere in the past in another universe the old Rose Tyler was still laughing and grinning, ‘accidentally’ bumping a hip into the Doctor or grabbing his hand, eyes always wandering back to his face. In a hospital two days earlier, the very last of that Rose had died. Something new was trying to poke its withered head up through the dirt, but she didn’t have the energy to coax it to grow. She was afraid of what exactly it would be. And so she laid there in bed, staring at the wall and trying to divine some sense from her mad life and ran through the memories that she held of the Doctor. They were beginning to fray around the edges—the exact pattern of freckles thrown haphazardly across the bridge of his nose was no longer exact, and the crinkles around his eyes had also faded into a grey space. The way he smelled danced just out of reach. Even the feel of his two heartbeats beneath her hands grew hazy.

Rose sniffled and turned over in bed. She bit her lip.

Old Rose Tyler would not be lying in a bed mourning. Old Rose would have gotten up and put on a smile, she’d have gotten over things and put her mind to finding a way out of the cage she was trapped in.

New Rose Tyler wiped vaguely at the corners of her eyes where the tears had welled up and then stared at the clear moisture on her fingers.

 

The TARDIS had begun a steady groaning wail as the pressure built up around her small blue walls. The Doctor yelled—an unthinking sound of coupled excitement and encouragement—and checked the screen. He darted beneath the console with what looked like an old mattress spring and wedged it in between two wires, then rocketed back upwards, completely focused. In moments of intense concentration like this he resembled the nine hundred year-old  timelord that he was. The years of experience sifted outwards into his deep brown eyes and pulled down the corner of his mouth ever so slightly. In that moment it wasn’t a surprise that he was an alien or a genius. It simply was.

There was a moment of silence, and then a pop in the Doctor’s ears as they squeezed through the doorway at the end of the black hole, only feet from where all the rest of the matter lacking technology to escape the center of the hole had compressed to the size of a pinhead.

He had a minute to grin and think that things hadn’t gone half badly—when the alarms began to go off.


End file.
